UFOctober: INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) is one of those movies that proves not all remakes are awful. While it's very different from the 1956 movie, it still captures that feeling of paranoia, fear of the unknown, and sheer terror when your friends and neighbors turn on you. Which is why I love both films and think they are top-tier in the list of who wore this premise better.
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) sets itself apart from its predecessor, and the 1954 novel of the same name that serves as the source material for both movies. Aside from the film being in color and fashion trends, it also had over 20 more years of social anxieties and conversations to contend with. You feel that even before you remember, this is post-Roe v. Wade, post-Vietnam War, and where second-wave feminism stood at this point. You can feel fear, rage, and disillusionment with America from most movies of this era. However, this one has a new layer upon every rewatch.
This remake is set in 1970s San Francisco and makes more room for women characters to be part of the action. It is also a bit sexier because they didn’t have the same 1950s restrictions. We get some of those sleazy venues and characters that populated cinema from this era. We also see a lot of men failing and then reaping their terrifying ends. The final shot lives rent-free in our minds because the internet will never let it go. However, there is an embarrassment of riches building up to that, and that is the real reason we keep coming back to this film.
Where the previous version is one of my favorite 1950s sci-fi adventures and still stands the test of time, 1978 feels more claustrophobic for me. It also has a stacked cast with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, and Veronica Cartwright. The creeping terror is also grosser because these pod people are coated in something nasty. It’s visually repulsive before you even look under the surface to see what was going on politically and socially to inspire this response. Horror is political, and making horror films is a political act. The reason the pod people premise always strikes a nerve is that we live in a world where people on the right side of history often suffer the most.
The older I get, the more INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) feels less sci-fi and more real. How many of us watched people drastically change even this decade and become unsafe? How many of us saw people blacklisted for speaking up about issues we should care about? We watched social media brain rot infect so much of our generation. They do not know how to navigate the world as people. They pretend to be helpless for pity, and they weaponize the bad things that happen to them in the pursuit of likes and follows. They have wrapped themselves in the internet cocoon and refuse to remember what the real world looks like. They choose dog whistles and are so removed from reality that they cannot see they have become the monsters they used to rail against.
Anyways, the movie rips. It will sadly be timely forever at the rate we’re going. As culture shifts, the wrong things remain the same. This is especially true in a country like America that refuses to learn or hold itself accountable so it can do better someday. A place where people are persecuted for being born as “other” and are then punished if they don’t want to assimilate and join in hiveminds that don’t actually do anything but harm others. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) has more layers than lasagna. Every rewatch proves each level is scarier than the last, especially when you are living through something too similar.
There are tons of UFO gems in the genre, but this is one of the few that actually hits harder each rewatch. I don’t think I truly appreciated the kind of scares it serves until 2016. However, now I can’t shake it as that fear claws at my chest, and I find new people to trauma bond with. After all, what else can we do in times like this but hold onto each other and wonder how we get out of this political nightmare? Surely, living in the world shouldn’t be this awful. This cannot be the American Dream that we have all been forced to hear about forever. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) shouldn’t be as relevant today as it is. That’s a huge failing on society’s part and why none of us are thriving in times like this.
While I prefer my terror on screen, it’s nice to have an alien invasion movie to remind you this has happened before. Things will not be easy, but they will pass eventually. It’s not the answer we want, but it does give a glimmer of hope in this darkest of timelines.
